Dems Test Odds on Top GOP Sen. McConnell in ‘08 Kentucky Horse Race

The Democrats’ plans to stage a serious challenge to Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell , the current Senate minority leader, are still in their formative stages. Some national Democratic strategists are high on state Auditor Crit Luallen — she was easily re-elected in the state’s Nov. 5 election — and state Attorney General Greg Stumbo is another possible contender. Neither, however, has committed to the Senate race.

Democrats are, nonetheless, emboldened by Democrat Steve Beshear’s trouncing of ethics controversy-plagued Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher — a McConnell ally — in the state’s off-year election. And they are sounding increasingly confident that they can at least seriously test McConnell’s hold on his Senate seat, which until not long ago appeared an iron grip. CQ Politics currently rates the race as Republican Favored, but is closely watching developments.

Moreover, it appears that McConnell’s rise to the top of the Senate Republican ranks last January is hardly an unalloyed blessing as he prepares for his 2008 campaign. While McConnell will run on the prestige and legislative clout that his position as minority leader provides, the post also has made him a much more visible target for attacks from Democratic politicians and from Web-based activists allied with the Democratic Party.

Democrats portray McConnell as the leading congressional standard-bearer for the policies of President George W. Bush , whose approval ratings in Kentucky — as in most of the nation — have tanked since he swept to victory in 2004 with 60 percent of the vote in the Southern border state. A Survey USA poll taken Nov. 9-11 showed 35 percent of Kentucky respondents approved of the job Bush is doing as president, to 62 percent who disapproved, figures driven heavily by the sharp decline in public support for the prolonged U.S. military intervention in Iraq.

McConnell is accused by his critics of using filibuster threats and other parliamentary maneuvers to obstruct the will of the majorities Democrats won in both the Senate and the House in the 2006 midterm elections. The heaviest hammering has come over McConnell’s staunch opposition to a series of Democratic-inspired legislative initiatives to force the setting of a timeline for withdrawal of U.S. troops in Iraq.

Among those who have gone after McConnell frequently and fiercely is the activist group Americans Against Escalation in Iraq. After CNN recently reported that McConnell said the war in Iraq is “winding down,” Aniello Alioto — the Kentucky field director for the anti-war group — responded, “Sen. McConnell is completely out of touch with reality. His claim would be laughable if there weren’t so many lives hanging in the balance.”

The attacks on McConnell and his high-profile advocacy of the congressional Republican agenda may have eroded his own approval ratings back home, though there is debate over that. A poll conducted on behalf of the McConnell for Senate Committee by Voter/Consumer Research Oct. 21-23 showed McConnell with a job approval rating of 56 percent. According to a release from Jan van Lohuizen, president of the polling company, McConnell’s ratings should “be considered healthy ... the results of our survey suggest Sen. McConnell’s numbers will improve very quickly once Kentucky’s voters learn more about his record.” But a Survey USA poll conducted in mid-October showed McConnell’s approval rating at 49 percent, not much above the 45 percent disapproval rating.

Apart from deep policy differences, there are Democrats who are anxious for their party to go after McConnell just to give the Republicans a taste of their own medicine. The Republicans’ successful effort in 2004 to oust Democrat Tom Daschle, who then served as minority leader, from his Senate seat in South Dakota broke a longstanding (albeit unspoken) tradition by the parties of laying off each other’s top congressional leaders in the name of legislative comity. Democrats still fume over efforts by the Bush White House, led by adviser Karl Rove, to encourage the strong candidacy of Republican former Rep. John Thune , and the South Dakota visit by Tennessee Republican Sen. Bill First, then the majority leader, to campaign against Daschle.

The decline of the bipartisan “hands off” approach to legislative leaders is just one of the events that underscores how times have changed since McConnell last ran for re-election in 2002.

Both he and Bush were riding high in approval polls a year after the Republican in the White House initiated a “war on terror” in response to the 9/11 attacks, and several months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. With Republicans enjoying a long-running trend in their favor in Kentucky, McConnell cruised to 65 percent of the vote to defeat a little-known Democrat. Chatter about a dominant McConnell political machine in Kentucky only grew in 2003, when Fletcher won for governor, and in 2004, when Republican Jim Bunning , McConnell’s Senate colleague, staved off a furious challenge from a Democratic upstart.

But more recent developments have weakened McConnell’s air of invulnerability back home. Despite strong support from McConnell, five-term Republican Rep. Anne M. Northup was overtaken by the national Democratic tide in 2006 and lost the Louisville-based 3rd District seat to Democrat John Yarmuth . And Democrats are gleefully circulating video from this year’s gubernatorial campaign of McConnell’s statements of support for Fletcher, whose public support collapsed in the face of a merit hiring scandal that set in early during his one term as governor.

Fletcher was “hand-picked” to run for governor by McConnell, according to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC). Matthew Miller, DSCC communications director, said after the election, “ Mitch McConnell threw his personal reputation and his supposedly invincible political organization behind Ernie Fletcher , and Kentucky voters overwhelmingly rejected him.”

Justin Brasell, a McConnell campaign spokesman, played down McConnell’s endorsement of Fletcher, saying it was “not a surprise that a Republican was supporting another Republican in a general election.” Brasell also noted that the senator is hardly sitting back and letting his opponents take the campaign to him, saying that the McConnell re-election organization has already launched television ads that are covering 60 percent of Kentucky media markets.

Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky and twice-monthly columnist for the Louisville Courier-Journal, said McConnell is smart to run ads this early, as there already is “a campaign against McConnell ... even without a candidate.”

Most recent speculation about who will face McConnell next November has focused on Luallen, though Jeff Derouen, communications director for the state auditor, declined to say that she has decided to run. Derouen did say that Democrats are not put off by the head start they have allowed McConnell, including in fundraising: The incumbent reported $4.9 million in campaign receipts just between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30, with cash on hand (including money carried over from last year) of $6.8 million. The Democrats, said Derouen, “will have enough money to get their message out,” adding that Democrats “are in an upswing in Kentucky,” assuring that a “good candidate” will be running next year.

Meanwhile, Stumbo, who is retiring as state attorney general, formed an “exploratory” committee for a possible Senate campaign a few months ago, but explained that a poll he plans to soon put in the field will be a major factor in whether he runs. He stated that the possibility of Luallen as a competitor wouldn’t change his strategy, referring to her as “not the favorite.” He added, “If she wants to run, she can run, but she’s never faced a tough Democrat in a primary.”

Also in the mix of potential Democratic candidates, according to Cross, is Andrew Horne, an Iraq war veteran who lost the 2006 primary in the 3rd Congressional District to Yarmuth. Horne currently serves as a senior adviser to VoteVets.org, a group of military veterans who oppose the Iraq war.

Cross said he hasn’t discounted the possibility of a bid by Charlie Owen, a millionaire from Louisville who lost Democratic primaries for the U.S. House and Senate in the 1990s; Owen was the lieutenant governor running-mate in 2003 to Democrat Ben Chandler , who lost to Fletcher but rebounded to succeed him in the U.S. House. Owen’s wealth could immediately allow him to ramp up a Senate campaign, if he were to decide to do so.

Overall, Cross said McConnell still appears a solid favorite for re-election, with an “85 percent” chance of retaining his seat. But, Cross cautioned, “There’s a fatigue factor,” adding that if there is a strong anti-incumbent tide in 2008, “it could go against McConnell.”

This isn’t the first time the KY Dems tried to run a supposedly “well-regarded” woman against McConnell. In ‘02, they touted the candidacy of the daughter of a former Governor, Lois Combs Weinberg. When Weinberg faced a contested primary, she barely won and was so crippled, McConnell beat her by an almost 2-to-1 margin.

I think the rodents will again end up forming a circular firing squad. Stumpy is a power-hungry thug, and if he has his eye on the job, he’ll similarly try to cripple Luallen just as he did in his successful coup d’etat against Gov. Fletcher. Add Charlie Owen to the mix and it will be an absolute bloodbath. McConnell will benefit enormously from that against whomever emerges.

It seemed a logical choice to back Northup, but there weren’t enough Republicans that wished to replace the damaged Fletcher in the primary. McConnell then had to awkwardly back Fletcher afterwards. I surely hope Northup would try to go and regain her House seat. The man that narrowly defeated her is a moonbat.

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